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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26123863">At All Costs</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon'>RetroactiveCon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Child Abuse, Hurt No Comfort, Leonard &amp; Lisa Snart Sibling Feels, Lewis Snart's A+ Parenting, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:41:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>691</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26123863</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Better me than Lisa. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>It’s the theme of Len’s life from the moment Lisa is born. </em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mick Rory/Leonard Snart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>At All Costs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/18000734">Until Death Do Us Part</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueelvewithwings/pseuds/blueelvewithwings">blueelvewithwings</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This mess of a fic was inspired by blueelvewithwings' <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/18000734">Until Death Do Us Part</a>, in which Chronos!Mick takes out his frustration at not catching Lisa on a captive Len. I had a sad feeling for what Len's thought process might have been, and then this happened, which is a bit more Snart-sib-centric but still ends with a Chronos scene.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Better me than Lisa. </em>
</p><p>It’s the theme of Len’s life from the moment Lisa is born. She comes into the world screaming and stays that way for years, and every new crying fit works Lewis into a rage. Len’s quick to jump to her defense, mouthing off and taking the punishment. He doesn’t mind. He’s ten whole years old; he can take it, shake it off, and make up Lisa’s bottle afterward. </p><p>
  <em>Better me than Lisa. </em>
</p><p>Lewis gets arrested again when they’re sixteen and six, not two months after Len gets out of juvie. He knows what will happen if anyone finds out, so he drops out of school, gets a semi-legal job, and supplements with pickpocketing when he has to. He’s had too much practice to get caught. The payments to keep the lights and water on are in Lewis’s name. Sometimes when it’s a choice between rent and enough food for both of them, Len goes without. He learns to handle days without food if it means Lisa’s happy and fed. No kid her age should ever have to go without.</p><p>
  <em>Better me than Lisa. </em>
</p><p>Lisa goes on her first heist when she’s nineteen, after years of Len trying to keep her out of it. She’s a last-minute replacement for one of their drivers who got cold feet, and then cold everything, the day of. Len worries the whole way through. When it comes down to the choice between letting her and the crew get away clean or making them wait for him and letting the cops close enough to give chase, there’s no contest. Len waves them on, and Lisa knows the score. She takes off and leaves him to be caught. It doesn’t matter anyway. He escapes Iron Heights in three months.</p><p>
  <em>Better me than Lisa. </em>
</p><p>They have a long stretch of good years, years as a family with Mick, years where Len is feared and Lisa is a respectable citizen in the eyes of the law. When Lewis bursts back into their lives, threatens Lisa if Len won’t help him pull off another of his damn-fool plans, there’s no way he can hesitate. After all, Lewis figured out long ago: Len would sell his soul, break his body, damage his own reputation far beyond saving if it meant Lisa would be okay. </p><p>
  <em>Better me than Lisa. </em>
</p><p>It comes down to that choice multiple times during his time with the Legends—what would he do to keep from fucking up time in a way that would affect his sister? Given how often they alter the past, he expects it to be something like a Russian Firestorm bringing about a nuclear apocalypse before Lisa is born or a swarm of mutant bird-bat-creatures taking over the planet. He never expects the threat to come from the one person he’s always, <em>always</em> trusted with his and Lisa’s lives.</p><p>“If you’re gonna kill me, just do it already!” Len snarls up at the face of his partner—his partner that he was always going to go back for, as soon as he had the <em>time.</em> Hearing that he never makes it back…well, it gives him a flare of worry about why he never has the time. </p><p>“I’m not gonna kill you,” Mick says, and Len’s never heard him sound this…cold. Whatever the Time Masters have done to him, this isn’t the Mick he loved (the Mick he abandoned). “I’m gonna take a trip back to Central City and visit your baby sister. The beautiful thing about time travel—” And oh, his voice is doing the thing it used to do when there was a fire lit nearby “—is I get to kill her more than once. Have fun with it.”</p><p>And really, with Mick promising to ‘have fun with’ killing Lisa, Len’s got no other options. </p><p>A few minutes later, bent over the console, letting Mick do as he pleases with him because the other option is him taking out a wholly un-Mick-like lust on a woman who’s been hurt enough by the men in her life, Len consoles himself by thinking on a loop, <em>Better me than Lisa.</em></p>
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